


Like Clockwork

by mylittlejaybird



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Angst, Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:21:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1946178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittlejaybird/pseuds/mylittlejaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Do you think Jason Todd doesn't like digital clocks because it reminds him of the red digital numbers that stared back at him as he awaited his death in the warehouse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> Saw the Ask on Tumblr, had to write this. Zero regrets.

The first time Jason woke up to the blaring red lights of the digital clock on his nightstand, he broke the skin of his knuckles punching it. The clock flew across the room, snapping to the end of its cord and smashing into the floor. He sat there breathing heavily, ignoring the whining sound that accompanied each exhale, sweat sticking his sheets to him like a second skin. No matter how much he blinked he couldn't stop seeing the negative image of the lights behind his eyelids. He didn't sleep for three days.

The second time was lead by the screeching of his alarm, and he screamed and couldn't get out of his bed fast enough. He lay in a heap on the floor with the alarm raising in volume the longer it went, his breathing loud and his heart jackhammering in his chest. Phantom pains wracked his body, and he was glad there was no one to see the tears streaming down his face. By the time he managed to come back to himself enough to get up and shut off the alarm, nearly forty-five minutes had passed.

He meant to throw the clock out after that, he really did, but when the sun was up his fears seemed irrational and baseless. He felt like a coward and a fool, cowering in the dark, as far from the red glow as he could get. He'd remain there until light crept through his thick drapes and freed him from the clutches of that damnable mechanism. 

So it stayed. It stayed, and he'd watch, waiting for the numbers to stop rolling forward, and to start ticking backwards instead. 

Waiting to see the countdown.

00:00:04

00:00:03

00:00:02

00:00:01


End file.
